Summer Folk

Comfortable, modern travel trailers allowed campers to take some of the amenities of home on the road and offered the flexibility of vacationing in different places. The 1937 Maine: A Guide “Down East,” written by workers of the Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Progress Administration, described Belfast as “a popular tourist center” and noted that the Belfast City Park had excellent camping and trailer facilities. Across the Passagassawaukeag River in East Belfast, the Mooring Camping Ground also provided a pleasant place to stay, with grassy grounds, shade trees, and a view of Penobscot Bay.

From 1945 to 1977 Fred and Florence Bastian owned the campground as well as the adjacent Mooring Restaurant and Dairy Joy, which were popular with locals and summer travelers. The campground had many repeat vacationers from across the country. In the 1950s author Clinton Twiss spent much of one summer there working on The Long, Long Trailer, a book and later a movie with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez, about a couple who spends a year traveling across the U.S. in a trailer; the book has a section on Belfast. The campground continues to operate as The Moorings, with 45 campsites.